Political Game and Personal Gain
by mind.les
Summary: Harry Potter never wanted to be famous. He was only a pawn in a competition for power that way. His friends are to be kept close, his enemies closer. Yet... Who are his enemies. And is Draco Malfoy really the friend he claims to be?
1. Beginnings

**AN:** **** _Feel free to comment and review. This is my first fanfic on this site and would love to hear from anybody who reads my work! Beware that updates would be long in coming. But i hope you enjoy! I'm serious though. Any plot ideas you wish to give? I'm happy to read and reply. Note enough with this! Go and read my ridiculously short chapter! :)_

 _There_ was a day I would have cared about the looks I was receiving. The quiet and studious glances of those that thought they knew me, but in reality, they had no clue. I was nothing more than a political figurehead in the game that was invented long before I was born. I am the Boy Who Lived. The public thought that because they have heard of me, knowing me was only logical. Yet, that isn't how it works. But I cannot say anything to the contrary. Politics is a very delicate game. One that I have already begun to test.

From the moment I walked into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the game I didn't know existed had been put into jeopardy. The Minister was worried. The World was worried. I was the only one that wasn't. I didn't know what was at stake. I didn't know the price that came with unwarranted fame. Every look, every action, every word I said was analyzed and scrutinized. I was a specimen to be examined. An anomoly to be sorted out. I was different. Once again, I was a Freak. I was tired of being labled. I wanted to rise above it all. No matter the cost. No politics. No expectations.

It was no wonder I was sorted into Slytherin. To be sorted as anything else now just seems preposterous.

My life in the first few days of my First Year of school was of a different nature. Alliances were made. Friendships formed. And the tenuous one I had made with the red head named Ron, dissolved. It was one of the stipulations Draco Malfoy had if he were to befriend me. I could deny the blonde nothing. He was my ticket to salvation. The one way I was going to be able to survive in a House of cutthroat competition and a people with the will to rise above all others. A will that almost rivaled mine. Looking back on it, Draco probably recognized my ambition from the beginning. That's probably why our friendship even existed.

I am not crying. As I write this, my eyes are dry. I am an Eighth Year now. Come to finish the year we all missed. It was an unexpected thing, Voldemort's return. I was expected to fight him. So I did. And it nearly cost me everything. Fine. So I am crying. But only because it DID cost me everything. Or MY everything. But let me start from the beginning.

I first noticed Draco Malfoy before school even began. Before I realized I was caught in a game of cat in mouse. Before I was a political pawn used to advance the needs of Ministry officials everywhere. I used to be innocent if you could believe it. I used to enjoy the little things. Like walking into a Robe Store and noticing a beautiful haughty blonde.

I used to be so innocent as to believe liking this boy from the first glance was something normal. If only.

"Are you going to Hogwarts too?" The angel before me had asked. And like an idiot, I could only nod.

"What House do you think you'll be sorted into? Personally I know that I'll be put into Slytherin. It's the best of the Houses, you see." The boy continued onwards, oblivious to Harry's confusion. "Every one if my family members where Slytherin, so I'll be welcomed whole heatedly. I'll be a celebrity! The Prince of Slytherin! Wouldn't that be grand! Draco Malfoy, celebrity! "Again I nodded mutely.

Several minutes passed in silence as the seamstress Madam Malkin adjusted the boy's robes. "Well?" the boy Draco said with an air of impatience. "What House do you want to go into?" I had no clue what he meant, but my sense of stuff preservation, always attune to the situations around me, gave me the answer. "Well Slytherin of course!" I managed to say in an uncharacteristic drawl that sounded a lot like Draco's. It sounded like I thought Slytherin was the only option. The most obvious, and this boy was an idiot for not realizing that from the beginning. From my silence. He should have taken silence as agreement. From then onwards, whenever we talked, he always took silence as agreement. But at that point in time, all Draco did was grin savagely and say, "But of course."

From that moment I knew we would be friends, or that both of us would try to befriend the other. It was advantagous. Logical. And it would do well to enter a new school with a friend.

I stuck out my hand to the gorgeous blonde and smiled in the same manner, "I'm Harry. Harry Potter." The gleam in Draco's eyes was unmistakable. But that was okay. Two can play at any game. And I always win.


	2. Observances

**AN:** _Hey there again! I am quite happy to be able to update again! I must say, for it being summer I don't get all that much time to type! But thanks for bearing with me on this! Now onto the story whose characters I do not on in any way shape or form! ...drats_

It was months into our Hogwarts career. I never noticed the leers I received just for being proud of my House, no not even that, for being PART of my House. Slytherin may have a bad reputation, but why am I being looked at as though I am some kind of monster? Why was it at the Sorting Ceremony everybody let out sounds of surprise when the Sorting Hat shouted it's proclamation: SLYTHERIN! It was as though the whole assembly of the Great Hall had expected something more of me. As though I disappointed them.

I had a type of devilish glee from being able to so shock the world. I was determined to prove that I could not be predicted, known, or calculated. I didn't want to be the person the Ministry and rest of the world wished me to be. I was going to be myself, Harry James Potter. Dumbledore's shocked and resigned face told me I was doing an admirable job to begin with. The look on the Weasley boy's face just added to my triumph. Draco didn't like him, so it was my duty to make his life miserable. But not for Draco, no not at all. It may secure my relationship with the boy, but it also gave me an edge. One rivalry in the school caused by Harry Potter? That would be something noteworthy. More than the _Prophet_ articles speculating on the "startling turn of events that landed this poor child into the most infamous House. The house that the man who murdered his parents once was a part of". No. I would be uncaring and be uncared for. I will be ice. And they would never be able to burn me.

I will not be used.

Draco taught me more than any of the Professors, with the exception of Snape, our Potions teacher and Head of House. He knew my mother and told me all he knew about her. It just endeared me to him even more.

Draco and I quickly became his favorite pupils, and even had the advantage of private lessons from the Potions Master. Whenever questioned about it, we claimed to be getting tutored. But everybody in our House knew. They just knew better than to disagree. Better than to get in our way. If they did then Hellfire would have rained on them. Trust their instinct of Self Preservation to work in our favor. Maybe we were all cut out for this life.

I saw many things too. Things not even Draco noticed. I never felt inclined to share either. I was too calculating, Their was a time for the information to be shared, other times for it to be exploited. I knew that because of my cunning, but more so because of the fact that I have been tempered and refined for Politics. It was a gift, if you will. A new kind of gift. Not speaking to Snakes, as I found I could do (much to the envy of my House mates), but subtly and discretion. Draco was proud. It wasn't something one can just learn. If it wasn't natural, you would die to this House. Social Pariahs all of them. The pureblood way.

"Draco." I said in one dull Transfiguration class, much to the displeasure of McGonagall, the Gryffindor Head of House.

"What?" he whispered back, irritably. He was having trouble changing the color of his feather as was the assignment. He always did get touchy about school. I think he just didn't like being bested by an inferior Muggle-Born. The... Mudblood, Granger. She really was a genius, but I fully expected her to off herself one of these days. She was a social outcast, friendless and envied for her smarts... somebody like that could be used to my advantage... but too bad Draco would disapprove. But who needs Draco's approval? I shook my head and answered the blonde's question.

"Look at Granger."

He did and he was met with one of the most amusing sights I had ever witnessed. The bushy-haired girl hadn't noticed that a strand of her wayward locks (that quite honestly could rival my own) had gotten in the path of her wand when she whispered the spell on the feather. Immediately she was successful... in turning her hair purple. She shrieked, and immediately the class erupted into laughter, Draco and myself included.

"How..." He said to me in-between gasping breaths and laughter, "did you know... that would happen?"

I just shrugged. "It's a gift."

I was always on top of what accidents were going to happen. A betting pool was devised on whether or not something would happen. I always won.

Are Bloody Baron and Peeves secret lovers of the past? Yes.

Would Pansy Parkinson make an Outstanding on her Charms essay? Only if you counted Outstanding failure. Her parents sent a Howler and everything. They expect more.

Everybody had somebody and it made me jealous. But I had Draco, and by extension his family. We spent all the Holidays together. He was my life-line. My friend.

I wonder how he would react when I explain my secret. The one I had known, but never told. I wonder if he knew what I was destined to do, be, and act like. I was nothing more than a pawn even to myself.

It didn't matter what I did. I was trapped, and nobody could save me.

How can anybody be saved from themselves?

 **AN2  
I know, I know. It's not all that long (again) But I'm working on it! I think I know where I'm going, but any ideas are welcome! review please my lovelies!**


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